


I Don't Cry in the Rain

by vogue91



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, F/M, Introspection, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 12:23:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13166838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: I fell, as if my knees had suddenly given in, as if the fury I had felt just a moment before had gone.I read quickly the words burned of those bland pieces of parchment, managing to glimpse the gentle and serene tract of her hand.Then I read it again, twice, three, four times.Lots of love, Lily.





	I Don't Cry in the Rain

The ashen face in front of me was staring.

Dumbledore had a furious expression that didn’t really fit him.

“You know all too well I wouldn’t have killed you.” I said, calm, almost resigned. I muttered a spell an went inside, getting rid of that macabre protection the Order had put there to deter me.

I looked at the walls of that squalid place, stage of the decadence of a name.

Too many people had lived there, and not many of them had left a touchable trace, a sign of their existence.

I went upstairs, staying still for a few minutes in front of the door of Sirius’ bedroom.

Accidentally, a smirk rose on my face. I went inside what had been his last prison, inside that room so deliberately different from the resto of the house. The sun shone arrogantly from the window, lighting up on the walls the gold-red banners, the Muggle posters and the picture of four boys, faded in time, memory of my torture during school.

I gritted my teeth, angry, and I lost my clarity of mind.

Potter’s face, horribly similar to that of his son, looked at me with a smile.

I saw again the victory in his eyes, that sense of omnipotence so typical of him. That look that had laid on her, managing in time to ruin my existence.

I started ransacking compulsively among Black’s stuff, without knowing what I was looking for.

I just knew that at that time I would’ve liked to destroy that place, in order to dissolve forever the essence that had once inhabited it.

Then, whilst I rummaged, destroyed and created chaos, I saw it.

I fell, as if my knees had suddenly given in, as if the fury I had felt just a moment before had gone.

I read quickly the words burned of those bland pieces of parchment, managing to glimpse the gentle and serene tract of her hand.

Then I read it again, twice, three, four times.

_Lots of love, Lily._

Love. That love I had missed, that I had killed, dead even before she was. Without knowing it, I started crying, with those same tears I had always dedicated to her, which I had never been able to suppress every time my mind wandered to her face.

I cried, on my knees, for the delicate tract of the quill. I cried for her smile in that picture that went with the letter, in which she seemed truly happy, alongside a man that wasn’t me, with a child that wasn’t mine.

All I ever loved, for a macabre twist of fate was beside what had filled my heart of pure hatred.

I tore Lily from that picture without even thinking of it, because now that her heart had stopped beating I had the power to split her from Potter, to take her with me and keep her safe, as I had always wanted to do.

I put it inside my cloak’s pocket, that smile, that seemed strangely maimed once far from the people that had caused it.

Then, reconsidering, I took also the second page of the letter. I wasn’t interested in remembering how happy she had been with her husband and son, I just wanted to bring with me a memory of her love and the signature that bore elegantly her name.

I went away from that house, as if I wasn’t able anymore to breathe inside it, as if walls were closing in on me, reminding me all I had lost, all the regrets that had suffocated me for twenty years.

In my pocket, on my skin, inside of me, Lily’s smile burned. It was the reprimand for all my faults but I, once again, ignored that warning.

I finally had a chance to own that smile, whether she wanted it or not.

 

~

It’s November.

Cold starts weaving through air arrogantly, to the point of piercing the bones, giving an apparent calm to what I feel.

The Great Lake’s water is calm too, tonight. I’m standing on the shore, staring idly at the horizon.

I feel incredibly empty.

The hand in my pocket is still grasping that piece of parchment, which I’ve seldom left unguarded.

It’s the most precious thing I own, and yet I realize I’ve got to let it go.

During the past few months I’ve thought long about what’s been of my life. And I’ve finally realized that there’s an inescapable death threat weighing on my head.

I’ll fight to survive, just because dying would be the extreme proof of my cowardice. And yet I desire it, so much that I can almost feel my heart bursting each time I think about what’ll happen to me.

Her smile, finally real, her eyes, shiny and lacking reproach. Because I know she won’t blame my actions on me. Because Lily has always been better than me.

Even when she stopped speaking to me, when she built a curtain of silence between us, when she turned her back on me, she’s never managed to hate me as much as I did myself.

And now that I know all this, the ink on this parchment seems to fade, her face in the photograph makes no sense anymore.

I kneel, like a penitent, getting dirty with a mud I know I deserve.

Slowly, I let the pieces of paper slip on the surface of the lake, rippling it imperceptibly.

Then, as if they wanted to mask my actions, light drops of water come to finish my work, drawing inexistent circles on the dark sweep, almost justifying what I’m doing.

It rains. A rain that would transfigure my own tears, were I still able to cry.

But I’ve cried too much, and now I’ve reached the end. I just want to rest, and yet I know I still have to walk another part of my road before coming to my goal.

I’ll never avenge my name in the eyes of the world, but it doesn’t matter.

When I’ll close my eyes for the last time, I want to do it knowing the meaning of serenity, of peace, ignoring the guilt and the grudge that have accompanied me up until now.

I want to understand how to smile, and like this giving myself to eternity and to Lily’s arms, without them being forced to grasp mere smoke.

I want a consistency I’ve never owned, now. And to do it, I have to forget I have a past, and never trust the future.

I’ll just live, right before I die.

 


End file.
